News posts from 2002
 

Just a note to let folks know that IBM has recently released its 120Gb Deskstar drives. These are Ultra ATA drives with a 7200 rpm rotational speed, yadda, yadda, yadda. Suffice it to say that these hummers are very big and more than fast enough to keep pace with your DV capture/edit needs. I've just replaced a 75Gb Deskstar with one of these 120Gb drives in my Mac G4 and I'm in hog-heaven. (Anecdotal speed comparison: it took 3.5 hrs to offload approx. 50Gb from the old 75Gb to an external Maxtor Firewire drive. It took only 2 hrs to reload the same files to the new 120Gb drive.)

I believe that the drives have an actual capaacity of around 135Gb but, nominally, it works out to an effective capacity of 120Gb.

The kicker: these drives will only set you back about $300! Geez, I'm old enough to remember when a 10Mb hard disk for an IBM AT cost $700.

The drives seem scarce right now (gee, I wonder why). I found mine at newegg.com.

Drive prices
 

I know what you mean. My first Mac was a 512k and then a Mac Plus. I drove to Sherman (Tx about 1 hr) to buy a 40MB SCSI driver for 499.00!

Then... paid around 4700.00 for a IIci WOW! 8 bit color with 8MB of RAM and a 100MB HD. What will I do with all that space!

We are the Jetsons

Once I finally join the G4+ club, I'll have to look for one of the new drives. BTW, I still have my SE30 that I paid aroung 4K for -- can't bear to part with it! Still works, as advertised, but mostly collects dust.

Cheers, Vic

Yo, Vic! Wanna buy a copy of Claris Works 1.0... cheap? How about MacDraw or MacWrite! Okay, I'll throw in a copy of MacPaint and Dark Castle for free.

Man, I'm feelin' old.

Ha! I recently found some software that I used on my Apple IIGS and IIc. Maybe they'll make a comeback!

Uh-oh...I think we got off-topic.....

Vic

I want two now! But I'm not sure I can justify the cost right now, oh well. I'll have to wait a bit before owning a 240GB RAID 0 storage system...

333 hour/month limit??
 

I have read about one potential problem with these drives - IBM recommends limiting their use to 333 hours per month. That is power-on use. See the following pdf:
http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/desk/ds120gxp.pdf

Not exactly confidence building, is it...

SD-Diver

Startling
 

No, it's not "confidence-building". Well, mine's installed and running fine. I'll report any trouble here.

Thanks for noticing this very odd recommendation.

So if you install two does it mean your NLE system will spontaneously combust and a huge winged demon will appear from the depths of Hades bringing forth an army of grey suit wearing, company song singing IBM execs.

...after 333 hrs.

Whew, I guess now we know why you call yourself "afterburner". <g>

120GB? Ha! My bladder has enough trouble handling 60GB drives!

Cheers, Vic

HA HA, I never thought of it like that.

I actually spent 8 years in the Australian Air Force working on F1-11's and F/A-18's and Afterburner just sounded catchy.

333 / 16 = 20.81
 

Hello all!

I just wanted to add that 333 hours a month translates into 20.81 16-hour days of drive use. I don't know who can take more editing than that?!? Oops, but I forgot about the all-night rendering jobs ;-)

There's another bit of interesting information concerning the retired IBM 75GXP series of HDs (from <http://www.arstechnica.com>):

Deskstar 75GXP lawsuit: A class action lawsuit has been filed against IBM regarding their Deskstar 75GXP drive. The suit alleges that: "IBM has represented to plaintiff and members of the class that the Deskstar 75GXP is a safe and reliable disk drive for accessing and storing data on a personal computer. To the contrary, due to a uniform defect in the design and/or manufacturing process, when such a defect manifests the Deskstar 75GXP 'crashes' without warning and results in the irretrievable loss of data and programs stored on the disk.

You have been warned ;-)

Cheers,

Ron

HD Is Getting Closer
 

According to a news brief on 2-pop Sony is preparing to release two news models of High-Def cameras, one for studio and one for more mobile use. While pricing and availability is not yet annouced (probably at April's NAB show) note the relatively low weight of these cams!

http://www.2-pop.com/brief/mainv/0,7220,33062,00.html

Hey Chris is there going to be a new CCD?
 

Chris on NPR this morning they said that a new CCD was going to be introduced at the convention interpreting color at various depths within the CCD. That appears to suggest a possible 3-CCD color resolution in a single CCD system.

Just see what you think.

Nathan Gifford